Let Me Go
by Ninasaurrr
Summary: Evey is dying, and there is just one man she needs to see before the end.


_Tonight we escape _

_Just you and me _

_We'll find our peace _

_Somewhere across the seas_

Shot – The Rasmus

My name is Evey Hammond, and I am dying.

It is unmistakeable, although the doctors try to convince me otherwise. But I know. I know because I have been waiting for this moment all my life. I have been waiting for this moment ever since he died.

_He_. V. When he waltzed into my life, I was nothing, and therefore I owe him everything. V saved me, not just from the secret police on that cold November night, but from myself and the lie I called a life. He was my creator, and when he was taken from me, I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

Immediately after his death, I was driven by pure adrenaline. All I could think of was two words: _parliament_ and _bomb_. Above everything else, I knew what I had to do – V had trained me well. But after the destruction was done, after this first battle was won, I tumbled into a well of my own despair. I was lost. V had been my light, guiding me away from the darkness of humanity, and suddenly – gone. It was like I had been walking down a pitch tunnel, and the flashlight had suddenly broken.

For months I did nothing but live in his lair, only rising from bed to carry out the most rudimentary of activities. I didn't wash. I didn't go outside. For six entire months, I was a hermit living in my self-made squalor.

I'd say that I suddenly saw sense, but I didn't. I had to forcibly drag myself out of my depression, slowly getting myself back into a normal, day-to-day routine. It was torture, but of course I had been through worse – again, thanks to V. By the anniversary of his death, I had stepped into his well-worn shoes and became a vigilant myself, of course in his name. If London knew of his passing, we may as well have said goodbye to all progress we had made. In the following decades London thrived, and once again became the prominent city it was meant to be. So I'd done my duty, and now – well, it was my time to go.

I could feel death coming, like a long-lost friend. Although we had won most of our battles, we had lost many, and death had become a constant companion of mine. So I was not afraid – I was relieved.

Relieved, but somewhat disappointed. Of course I had learned to accept V's passing, but somehow it felt wrong that I was lying here dying and he was not next to me. V had been made immortal by the countless followers who had joined his cause and taken up his mask. So why wasn't he here with me?

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Evey." The voice drifted from the shadows in every corner of my hospital room, so quiet that at first I was sure I had been hallucinating. And of course I was hallucinating – the voice had been of my V, the V who had died fighting for what he believed in. As much as I wished and as hard as I prayed, I couldn't bring him back. But it had sounded so real…

"Evey…" The voice came again, louder and stronger, this time reverberating around the room. I struggled into a sitting position, the flaps of my wrinkled skin dropping with gravity.

"V?" My voice was hoarse, broken from its lack of use. I had no visitors, no children to speak of – how could I have found someone else after him? I cleared my throat, wincing as my lungs burned from the effort, and tried again.

"V?"

"Evey." The voice now had one source, coming from beside me. I turned my head, and from the shadows he emerged.

He was just as I remembered him – long cloak, leather gloves, a wide-brimmed hat and, of course, the mask. Oh, that mask. I had fallen in love with it as surely as I had fallen in love with him.

V swooped down to kneel beside me, briefly stopping to kiss the crown of my shaved head. I had made them do it – if there was any chance of his visit, any chance at all, I wanted to look as much like I had the last time he had seen me. I closed my eyes as the cool plastic grazed against my scalp, revelling in his closeness. It had been too long.

"I didn't think you'd come."

"Are you sure?" his glove trailed down my cheek and my neck, brushing my shoulder and arm until it came to rest in my hand. I clenched his fingers as tight as I could, clinging to the realness of him as if he would disappear in a puff of smoke. Knowing him, he probably could.

"I'd hoped. God, I've hoped for so long. I almost gave up on you."

"But you didn't." It was a statement, not a question. I could feel tears brimming from the corners of my eyes, ready to explode at the next blink. V's other hand came up to capture the water before it trickled down my cheeks, wiping it away as if he could erase all the sadness within me.

"No. I should have, though. It would have spared me a lot of heartache." I swallowed around the lump that had arisen in my throat, and stared at the eyeholes of his mask, imagining I could see the black pits that hid beneath. V chuckled, his shoulders shaking slightly at the motion.

"Oh but Evey, if we didn't feel grief, we would lose our humanity. Loss makes us human."

"Then I envy all other animals."

"And they envy you in turn. We all want what we cannot have."

"But I had you." I glared at him fiercely, my grip tightening as I shook his hand. "I had you, and I lost you."

"You've never lost me, my dear, for I have always been with you. And you know that." It frustrated me, but of course he was right. Maybe he had not been with me, but V had. He was all around me – in the papers, on the television, hanging up on the wall in my neighbour's entrance hall. V had never left.

"I'm going, V."

"I know. That's why I've come."

"No, I mean I'm going. Now. I can feel it." All of a sudden a wave of dizziness had flooded my senses, sending me to collapse back against my propped up pillow. V shifted on his knees, moving himself closer to my bedside. My breathing had become rapid and shallow, and my vision was blurring at the edges – when had that happened? I knew it was coming but –

"I thought I had time." I whispered weakly, not knowing what else to say. This was it. I couldn't face saying goodbye again.

"Leave me."

"Evey, I am staying with-"

"No. Go. I lost you once, and I refuse to do it again. Go. Consider it to be my dying wish." Above all else, V valued his honour. With a sigh, he rose from his kneeling position and once again kissed my forehead.

"I brought something for you, Evey. It will be the first of many, I am sure." From behind his back, he produced a single scarlet Carson, and I couldn't stop the nostalgic smile that spread across my face.

"But you didn't kill me, V."

"Didn't I?" The last thing I saw before my eyes shut was the swirl of his cape and the tip of his hat.

"Until we meet again, Miss Hammond. Until we meet again."


End file.
